Do you have The Force within you?

The Ashoka website describes the purpose of the Young India Fellowship as “bring(ing) together a group of 215 (now 285) bright young individuals who show exceptional intellectual ability and leadership potential from across the country, and trains them to become socially committed agents of change.” It’s a big statement. It’s ambitious. And it is a baffling notion for someone who is not part of the programme.

Apart from a broad range of modules, the YIF focuses hugely on developing leadership and entrepreneurial skills. There are some of the mindset that leadership cannot be taught. Through a cocktail of upbringing and circumstances and fairydust, you either have it or you don’t. Dwight Jaggard, visiting professor from UPenn, is not of this opinion - he is of the view that leadership is something that can be learned and honed and that anyone, given the right training and mindset, can enhance their leadership potential.

This does not mean that YIF students are waking up at 6am, taking cold showers and running intensely around campus to ’Eye of the Tiger’ whilst in training to lead. Jaggard wants us to start with the personal; to explore ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses and our values. Ownership of these traits will enable us to lead with more direction and agency. In his Foundations of Leadership class, we were split into groups, given a task to complete and a student observer audited and took note of the team interaction. In this setting, you confront a whole range of team dynamics –agreement, disagreement, negotiation, frustration, persuasion and diverse opinion. It is invigorating. It is testing. Jaggard looms above us with a perpetual grin on his face, like an all seeing, all knowing Yoda, guiding us through the process, encouraging self-introspection, praising when things go right and identifying when things go wrong.

I am still uncomfortable with the term “change-agent.” I don’t think I will be updating my Faceboook bio with ‘Hi, my name is Karen and I am a socially committed agent of change’ anytime soon. Of what change, is the question. But who knows? We’re still early in, and as Jaggard said, it is only through self-discovery that we will be able to figure out what will be our contribution to the world.

Thankfully, we have Yoda – I mean Jaggard – to ignite The Force within us.

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